Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Carnival Fun

Nothing like an elementary school carnival to welcome fall
into our lives!Emma and Sophie’s
school had their annual carnival and we couldn’t miss it…plus, Gracie’s “best
buddy” Owen was going, making it even better.

We had a blast playing on the huge blow up slides…well, correction,
Gracie loved it and braved the gang of boys to slide down (she dominated, she may
or may not have pushed a little boy down) and Maddie cried in the corner (I’m
happy just seeing her occasionally act like a baby instead of a toddler).We hit up the bake sale where Matthew
only bought two cupcakes for him and the girls to share.Gracie ran off with one and Maddie
yelled until he just gave the whole cupcake to her…you’d think he’d know by now
our girls don’t do shared treats. Maddie has decided she no longer needs adult supervision and runs like a wild child at every chance...I'm resigning myself to another year of only wearing flats. We couldn’t leave without balloon hats or the standard-at-every-carnival
fishing game.

The real icing
on the cake, the best of the best, was the pony rides.I
know we probably should have just steered the girls past it, but I couldn’t
resist.It was pure joy; Gracie’s horse
even had a dyed purple mane.I had
to literally peel Maddie’s hands off the saddle at the end of the ride.Gracie Belle immediately ran to ask
Daddy Bear if he could buy her a pony (he promptly said yes, but we needed to
find somewhere for it to live, leaving me to really say no).As the carnival was winding down they
brought the trailer in to load up the ponies.Gracie ran to the trailer, climbed up and put her hand right
in to pet them…no second thought to them being, you know, animals with teeth…who
can bite.We gathered quite a
crowd as they pulled the trailer away and Gracie cried, “NO!!! Ponies, please
NO!!!” making us feel like we’re going to give her some sort of complex with
all the animal loving followed by taking the animals away.

Luckily, once she calmed down she told
us she could use her pretend pony until we found a place for her real pony to
sleep. All in all it was a perfect fall night, there really is nothing like a
carnival!